After my last blog entry, I received — to my shock — several emails from publishers who said they were interested in using my cartoons.
As soon as I asked about payment, two of them ghosted me. (I’m waiting to hear back from the other ones, and I hope we can work together.)
This is a common problem for anyone in a creative field — musicians, artists, photographers, even radio hosts. People ask us all the time to donate our work … or worse, they don’t ask, they just assume we’ll work for free, and they get offended when we ask about compensation.
“Can’t you work for free?” Yes, I can. I work for free for myself. Not you.
“But we’re a nonprofit.” So am I, when no one pays me.
“Can’t you donate your time?” Ask your plumber if she can donate her time when your drains back up.
“But you’ll get exposure!” If I want to expose myself, I’ll buy a raincoat.
Or, they ask us to work on “spec” — meaning “speculation.” In other words, they might pay us, they say, if they make a profit.
“Might” and “if” are doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Mark Evanier explains why you should never work for “spec”: “The people asking you to submit spec work may not really be that serious — or in a position to buy anything. I can think of a dozen guys who in the last dozen years were going around trying to get folks to write and draw stories of their characters on spec … What they all had was a dream and no funding.”
Evanier says, “Think of it this way: If one of those guys had approached you about investing $1,000 in his alleged company, you would have run the other way. So why would you ever want to do $1,000 worth of free work for him?”
John Scalzi is blunter: “When I want to write for fun, then I do it. But when people come to me — especially people I don’t know — looking for writing, they’re asking for work.”
What are my prices? I ask $25 per hour. A simple black-and-white drawing probably takes me less than two hours. I’ll give you an estimate before I start and I’ll send sketches for you to approve before I finish.
I think that’s eminently reasonable. (In fact, it’s probably way too low.)
If $25 is too much for your publication to pay for an original drawing, you don’t want an artist; you want a book of clip art.
I did realize that I should probably post a portfolio of my work, which brings to mind a great scene from the Canadian sitcom “Corner Gas,” which I love. (And which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.)
It’s available on Amazon Prime, and you should go watch it.
In the episode “Seeing Things,” the two small-town police officers, Davis (Lorne Cardinal) and Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) are considering ideas to improve the public image of the police department.
Davis wants to update the graphics on the police car. Hank (Fred Ewanuick) asks what they’re doing:
Davis: Designing a new decal for the side of the police car.
Hank: Hey, cool. Xena!
Karen: No! No warrior princesses!
Hank: I know a guy who could airbrush that wicked-fast for ya.
Karen: It’s a police car, not a make-out van.
Davis: No reason why it can’t be both. Now, this airbrush guy, does he have a portfolio?
Hank: Uh, no. A Camaro, I think.
Davis: I mean — does he have an example of his work?
Hank: Yeah, I know. It’s on his Camaro.
I don’t have a Camaro, but here’s a portfolio of my work:
Editorial Cartoons
Magazine Illustrations
